


The One Guy You Meet in Limbo

by Mireille



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: maleslashminis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-23
Updated: 2008-03-23
Packaged: 2019-03-21 03:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13732245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: The one guy you meet in limbo might just be enough.





	The One Guy You Meet in Limbo

"So, you were my replacement," a voice says from behind Wesley. "I have to say, from what I can see, I'm not all that impressed." He isn't sure where the owner of the voice came from; since he woke up here, Wesley hasn't seen anything beyond grey-brown land stretching into grey-green horizon. It's a non-threatening voice, though, with a slight Irish accent, and Wesley is surprised enough to turn around.   
  
And is surprised again when he recognizes the speaker from pictures in Cordelia's apartment. "I'm hallucinating," Wesley mutters, shaking his head to clear it. He supposes that having been in this featureless wasteland for so long has broken his sanity. He isn't even certain how long he's been here, without any cycles of day and night, and his watch hands spinning crazily--has broken his sanity. He remembers, though it feels a long way away, that it was perilously fragile when he came here. "You're dead." He's been dead since before Wesley came to L.A.; his mind must have conjured him up to remind Wesley, yet again, of his inadequacies.   
  
The speaker--Wesley won't name him, not when he's certain it's only a hallucination--snorts. "So are you." He frowns. "And no, I don't know how I know you. This place does things to your head, sometimes."  
  
"I'm not dead," Wesley says. He doesn't know where this is, or how he got here, but he isn't dead.  
  
This isn't Hell--numbingly, crushingly dull, but not Hell--and so Wesley can be confident of that.   
  


****

  
  
"Are you going to help me find a way out of here, or not?" Wesley demands, when the other man turns up again after a while. He'd started looking for some possible escape route as soon as the man had stalked off in irritation, and while he's had no luck so far, he hasn't given up hope yet. If they could be brought here, they could escape.   
  
"Have you been listening to anything I've said?" Doyle--hallucination or not, Wesley needs a name he can call the other man--says. "There's no 'out of here.' As long as I've been here, you're the only thing I've seen that wasn't  _that_." He waves his hands at the landscape: perfectly flat land, perfectly cloudless sky. "And I'm still not sure I didn't imagine you. It's never worked with people before, but practice makes perfect."  
  
"What's never worked?"   
  
"For God's sake," Doyle mutters. "What did you  _do_  before I found you? Stare into space?" Since Wesley had, for the most part, done just that, he remains silent as Doyle goes on. "This," he says, his brow furrowing for a second in concentration.   
  
A small table pops into existence between them, flanked by two cane-seated chairs. Wesley's eyes widen, and he lifts the lid of the china pot on the table, breathing in the scent. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had a cup of tea?"   
  
"Damn it," Doyle says, pulling out a chair. "I was trying for beer."   
  


****

  
  
It turns out that Wesley has the same powers of creative visualization--it isn't really conjuration, he decides; he can't feel  _any_  magical power involved in the creation, and while he's not particularly sensitive, he should have felt  _something_ \--and once they've finished the tea, he imagines a more comfortable place for them to sit and talk.   
  
The furnishings he manages to create look more suitable for a gentleman's club of the previous century than a bleak wasteland, but the chairs are well-upholstered, and Doyle is pleased by the drinks tray on the table between them.   
  
Wesley waits until they're both settled with drinks in their hand before he brings the subject up again. "What will it take to get you to help me find a way out of here?"   
  
Doyle shakes his head. "We're  _dead_ , Wes," he says. "There's no way out."  
  
That's not completely true, Wesley knows, but it's irrelevant, since they aren't dead. "If we can create a tea-table out of nothing, we can find an exit."   
  
"Since when have you been able to make furniture with your mind?" Doyle counters. "Doesn't that make you think something's weird about this place?" But finally, he shrugs. "I'll help you look," he says, "if, once we can't find it, you start getting on with your afterlife. All this denial is making you lousy company, and it's  _boring_  here."   
  
It seems a fair bargain to Wesley, since he's certain he's right, so all that remains is to shake on it.   
  


****

  
  
Working together, they manage to create a small cottage--they agree that while they don't actually need them, they want a proper house, with two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. While Doyle is occupied with trying to imagine a working television, Wesley claims one of the bedrooms, dimming the lights and taking to the bed, wishing he could fall asleep to block out the knowledge that Doyle had been right.  
  
He suspected, just from the easy companionship that had sprung up between them, that they'd spent months, if not years, exploring the wasteland, trying to find some kind of border. When they tired of traveling, they'd stop for a while, honing their visualization skills, in case the exit needed to be created rather than discovered.   
  
Nothing had worked. At least Doyle hadn't gloated; he'd seemed genuinely disappointed when Wesley had admitted that it was possible that Doyle was correct, and they were in Limbo, or Purgatory, or something similar that meant they had an eternity of boredom ahead of them.   
  
Wesley counts seconds in his head, so he knows it's been fifteen minutes when Doyle comes in, sitting down on the edge of the bed and putting his hand on Wesley's shoulder. "Come on, Wes," he says, softly. "It's not so bad, is it? Better than some places we could be, right?"  
  
He looks out from under the blanket then, feeling himself smile in spite of everything. "No," he admits. "It could be a great deal worse."   
  


****

  
  
Doyle leaves him alone after that, and Wesley counts off three more hours in his head before he comes out into the living room, where Doyle is sprawled on the couch watching the television. "It'll always be repeats," he says, "but it's the best I could do."   
  
Wesley moves Doyle's feet from the end of the couch so that he can sit down next to him. "I've been thinking," he says, after a long silence.   
  
"You do that too much." Doyle has told him that regularly over the time they've known one another, sometimes with irritation, and sometimes with something Wesley has started to recognize as fondness.   
  
"Perhaps." He's aware of the irony here, that it's only now, when he quite possibly has a literal eternity to make up his mind, that he finds it easy to take action; but he's glad of it, all the same. He rests his hand on Doyle's knee, smiling when the other man looks up at him in surprise. "But I don't think you'll mind, in this particular instance."   
  
"I don't think I will," Doyle agrees, grinning at him. "So, think we can remodel the bedrooms into one without having to start the whole house from scratch?"   
  
"I think that's a bit premature," he says, trying to sound as starched and proper as he can. "You haven't even kissed me yet."   
  
Doyle corrects that oversight, and Wesley smiles against his mouth, realizing that there are some situations where eternity might just be bearable. 

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
